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Chris McComber

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Is Innistrad limited the best ever?

Wednesday, November 16, 2011, 8:03 PM

Categories: Magic: The Gathering

Sometimes I wish I had more time to play paper Magic.
There are a number of reasons for this. First, it's expensive to try and support an online and real life card collection simultaneously. For that reason, I mostly play only in the pre-release and release events online, so that I’ll build a collection while getting in games of my favorite format, limited. Be it sealed or draft, it is definitely what I’d rather being doing, especially online. In the real world, I buy cards when a set comes out, usually by the fat pack and a booster box or two. Since that “cost saving” option isn’t available online, I’ll pay for the cards as I’m going to play and slowly build my collection that way. This keeps me priced out of constructed formats online for the most part. I have all the paper cards I need to play a number of competitive Standard decks, but nowhere near that online. Second, when I play paper Magic, it’s usually not at home. Which means real life family things do not interrupt it. Which means I can usually focus on the game more and do better in general. Online Magic is (for me) played in my living room on the family computer, with 3 children that sometimes like to argue and be normally distractive. So while it’s cool that I can play any time of day in my PJ’s, it has its own set of drawbacks.
But I’m not really here to complain about my lack of Standard real life play. It doesn’t bother me much at all, mostly because of what I am here to talk about. Innistrad limited rockin’ online! That is my humble, non-professional opinion anyhow.
This set is so much fun for me that I’ve cut back on trips to Starbucks to justify the $13.97 a week to jump into an 8-4 INN draft or two a week. Yup, I’ve traded a caffeine addiction for digital paper crack addiction, but I’m fairly sure that I’ve made the right choice. I’ve been so impressed with the diversity of decks that you can draft and win with, that I think I may never get tired of this set. While that last blog highlighted a less than stellar draft, I’d like to talk about a more recent one I was in, in which I still lost in the semi’s, but had fun doing it.
I should start by saying that I’m not afraid to get gimmicky. Oh, and I’m pretty greedy when it comes to 3 colors at times too, but it seems good to me to think “high risk = high reward”. That being said, here is the deck that I built after drafting. (I would post the draft, but don’t want this to be a 2 part post, I’ll cover some of the key picks below the deck.)

Deck
2x Think Twice

1x One-Eyed Scarecrow

1x Deranged Assistant

1x Back from the Brink

Sideboard
1 Curse of the Bloody Tome

1 Hysterical Blindness

1 Curse of the Nightly Hunt

1 Frightful Delusion

1 Victim of Night

1 Dream Twist

1 Curse of the Pierced Heart

1 Stitcher's Apprentice

1 Bitterheart Witch

1 Sensory Deprivation

1 Rage Thrower

1 Makeshift Mauler

1 Lost in the Mist

Okay then here’s the first 2 cards:

Pack 1 pick 1:

My Pick:

Pack 1 pick 2:

My Pick:

I watch a lot of DraftMagic dot com, ChannelFireball dot com, and StarCityGames dot com drafts that the pros record. For the most part they are great tools, and sometimes they even go out on a limb and try to make things happen in their drafts. Anyway, I just recently listened to Marlon Egolf and company on a podcast discuss Back from the Brink and had never played with it before, so I thought I would give it a try. This pack is really deep, with Stitched Drake , Makeshift Mauler , Gatstaf Shepherd , and a Geistflame , which after seeing my second pick, is what I should have grabbed. The Burning Vengeance is the kind of gimmicky draft strategy that I really like, and I see them late sometimes, so I immediately grabbed it and decided this would be the draft to go all in on flashback.

Pack 1 pick 9:

My Pick:

As you can see from my opening pack, Dream Twist wheeled, as it usually will, and this type of deck is perfect for it. The other cards left made me believe that getting more black and blue cards shouldn’t be a problem and I was probably splashing something depending on the flashback spells I would end up with.

First Pack highlights were Back from the Brink , Burning Vengeance , Selhoff Occultist , Think Twice , Victim of Night , Armored Skaab , Delver of Secrets , Dream Twist , and a One-Eyed Scarecrow .

Next Pack, these first 8 picks are all sick!

Pack 2 pick 1:

My Pick:

Pack 2 pick 2:

My Pick:

Pack 2 pick 3:

My Pick:

Pack 2 pick 4:

My Pick:

Pack 2 pick 5:

My Pick:

Pack 2 pick 6:

My Pick:

Pack 2 pick 7:

My Pick:

Pack 2 pick 8:

My Pick:

I couldn’t ask for much more. Grasp of Phantoms is one of my favorite flashback tempo spells. Yes, I’ll take a 2^nd pick Bloodgift Demon , thank you very much! All those flashback spells and then an 8^th pick Burning Vengeance ? Am I living the dream or what?

Final pack, here are the first 2 picks:

Pack 3 pick 1:

My Pick:

Pack 3 pick 2:

My Pick:

Silent Departure is again perfect for this deck. The real thing I wanted to make here is a public service announcement. NEVER, I say again, NEVER PASS DEVIL’S PLAY . I hope this guy got something good, and that he was the guy that beat me in the semi’s (so I can eat my words) and that would make his pick more correct, but seriously, Fireball is always splash-able! I about jumped out my chair and in real life would have windmill slammed this puppy onto my draft stack!

Like I said, I lost in the semi-finals to a guy with the super red green werewolf deck, and I had mana problems. First round the deck hummed like nobodies business and I think if not for the mana screw I would have been the winner round 2 as well. At the beginning I mentioned my greediness and having a Bloodgift Demon with no swamps Rd2Gm2 may have been what ultimately cost me, but I have no regrets.

Who knows, it may have been correct to take Rage Thrower number 2 in the third pack over the departure and then play the 2 of them over the demon. Also, if I didn’t take that demon, maybe I take Geistflame over the Unburial Rites ? Any thoughts on that?

Delver of Secrets was an all-star in this build and I was otherwise happy with the deck, although some Desperate Ravings would have been sweet. I never saw one in the whole draft, so it’s hard to say what happened there. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to many more Innistrad drafts, even if my kids drive me crazy while doing them!